THE SULTANA IN HER STATE ARRHUBA.T. Allom.J. Jenkins.
This carriage, peculiarly Turkish, we have already described among the conveyances that thronged the social meetings at the Sweet Waters of Asia. It is here presented as the principal and most conspicuous object of our illustration. The ponderous body of the machine, placed on wheels without springs; the heavy but gilded and gaudy carved-work which covers it; the long-horned oxen which drag it; the singular arches dangling with tassels, to which their tails are generally tied; the dense mass of hair drawn down before, and carefully dyed, like the ladies’ nails, with henna; and the amulets pending over their noses, to guard them from the effects of an evil eye−are here accurately represented. Beside the draught-beasts walks the Greek arrhubagee, leading the docile animals by the horns; and next the carriage is one of the black eunuchs, with his drawn sabre, threatening with instant death the passenger, whose profane eye shall dare to glance at his sacred charge within. It was formerly the indispensable usage, that every arrhuba should be closely covered with silken curtains, so that the inmates were never seen, except when the wind, or the jolting on an uneven road, moved the curtains aside, and revealed for a moment the mysteries of the interior; but recent approximation to European usages has removed this veil, and even open carriages on springs have been seen in the Turkish capital, filled with the secluded females of the harem.
Our illustration represents the Asmé Sultana driving from her palace at Eyoub, through the Valley of the Sweet Waters. Crowds of females line one side of the road; and, with the jealous sense of Turkish propriety, the males, separated from them, line the other. A train of arrhubas follow in the rear, with various ladies of the seraglio.